Daubs Deployed

Whispers echo still, enlighten’d darkness,

Linger, longing, found in cyberspace,

Heard beyond all planetary, winsome,

I hear them then I picture words and face.

Whispers rise up, somehow are converted,

Awesomely configured, rendered, changed,

I can’t conceive of how a brain invented

Ways to alter speech, so rearranged.

I guess it started with some daubs on cave walls,

Grunts to graphics, pics for history,

Some cuneiform and hieroglyphs translating

Thoughts to page awaiting you and me,

Some ink pens then, calligraphy, that beauty,

Painstaking effort, patient and adorned,

Greek, Semitic, Arabic and Chinese

Marks upon some parchment to inform.

I’m thinking then of smoke and drums and phone calls

And telegraphs that sped the process on,

Who knew that one day someone could encrypt so

And fire words to ether coded, formed.

Thinking typewriters, TV and now Skyping,

Measures that foreclose the distance, space,

So techy I can barely understand it

But glad still that the progress had its place.

I’m putting down my pen now, words on paper,

Typing from the symbols, thoughts to all,

Sending code still daubed, deployed as little pictures,

Some abstracted, etched forever on my cavern’s wall.

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Xenophobia

Perpetuated myth

of stranger evil,

daggers drawn

for devils in

disguise.

Weird, lurking

creatures, strange of

habit, beware their styles,

their foods, their tongues that lie.

Remember to dissuade

all hope of union,

foreigners fierce,

fulsome

of eye.

Bewail

portents, signs,

curses may befall us,

enlist the guard, pogrom,

genocide. Ensure a culture dies.

Propaganda, stereotypical isolation,

belief that diverse

means

alien,

 spy.

Really?

Are we all so

very different?

Two legs, two arms,

One heart, we live, we die.

Preconceptions

Ah’m no’ hard.

Ah’m no’ even that tough.

Bit ye see, Ah come fae Glesca,

So that seems tae be enough,

To send some people scurrying

Right off their mark,

Terrified I’ll chib them,

Attack them in the dark.

Bit ye see, it’s jist an accent,

‘Cos ah come fae this place

Jist lik you’ve got wan,

Mibbe nicer. Bit still an accent.

An’ a face.

Ah could dae Irish fur ye,

That sounds awright.

Ah’ve always liked that yin,

‘Cos it disnae gie ye a fright.

Or mibbe the Highlands cos

They sing a wee song,

Makes ye want tae dance

As if ye belang.

Or ‘ow about ze French?

I ‘ope eet’s not too bad

Been a leetle while seence I practeesed

So eet might sound a trifle mad.

But ah’m no’ fae they places

Ah’m fae Glesca, awright?

An’ ma voice is jist a voice

Wi’ an accent that’s no’ too polite.

A helluva wie tae judge people though,

Lookin’ at faces an’

Listenin’ as if ye could know

Whit they’re aboot,

Like ye know them so well,

Rubbish that is,

A terrible wie tae foretell

A person’s character, their

Values, their worth.

Makin’ judgements ‘cos folk are different.

Who dis that kinda stuff?

Ah’m no’ hard, ah’m tellin’ ye,

Jist a Glesca lassie that’s aw.

Inherited my accent

Fae ma da an’ ma maw.

Bit they always tellt me,

No matter yer station,

‘mind yer as good

As the rest ae the nation.

A message ah learnt

When ah wis jist wee

No’ tae judge others

‘cos ae where they’re fae.

 

What A Laugh! Or, Not.

Is there such a thing as differences in humour between cultures? I’m asking because I have noticed that there might be. I may have to stop making certain comments that suggest, to me, that I am highly amused but may, in fact, seem facetious. It also works in reverse. Has anyone else noticed possible discrepancies? And, if so, any particular reasons why?

I don’t want to start a debate about this but I am genuinely curious. Is it down to cultures or just personalities? Is it modesty? Is it …shit….I don’t know what.

This could make a significant difference in the comments we all make.

I will not tell, at this point, what amuses me in comment but I would like to avoid offense! Both giving and receiving. Just askin’. 🙂 x